The present invention relates to a magnifying apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for viewing an object such as a book or other printed material on a surface by magnifying the object and viewing the magnified image at an angle from the surface on which the object is located.
Magnifying devices for enlarging an object so that it is easier to see are widely available. To use the currently available magnifying devices, the object to be viewed is placed on a relatively horizontal surface. The magnifier is placed over the object to be viewed. The viewer must then lean forward over the magnifier and the object to be viewed and look down through the magnifier.
For instance, currently available hand held and stand magnifiers require that the magnifier be held or positioned in a plane parallel to the object the user desires to view. The user must bend over to view the object by looking straight down through the magnifier if the object is placed horizontally on a table or desk surface. If the user holds the object to be viewed at an angle from the horizontal, then the magnifier must also be held at an angle in a plane parallel to and spaced apart from the object. The space or distance between the object and the magnifier depends upon the magnification of the lens of the magnifier.
Several paperweight-type magnifiers are manufactured by Selsi Co. Incorporated (40 Veterans Blvd., Carlstadt, N.J. 07072). Most paperweight magnifiers have lens sizes ranging from two to three inches, and powers ranging up to 9.times., and are compact, but heavy. To use this type of magnifier to maximum advantage, the user must bend over to look directly down through the magnifier.
Magnifiers in frames having a paddle-type handle are distributed by Donegan Optical Co. Inc. (15549 West 108th Street, Lenexa, Kans. 66215) and others. COIL (Combined Optical Industries Limited, 200 Bath Road, Slough, Berkshire SL1 4DW, England) also manufactures rectangular and circular magnifiers supported on plastic molded stands. Those magnifiers suffer the same disadvantage as all other available magnifiers in that the user must bend over and look down through the magnifier to be able to view an object.
Bausch and Lomb attempted to solve this problem by providing an "Around-the-Neck Magnifier", called the "Magni Viewer". That device permits the user to hold an object such as a book under the viewer at an angle from the horizontal, i.e., inclined toward the face of the viewer, without the necessity of also holding the magnifier in the hands. That device has the disadvantage that the user must hold the object to be viewed at exactly an optimum distance from the magnifier to obtain a clear view of the object. Other attempts to solve this problem have involved the use of refracting prisms, but such prisms introduce gross color aberrations and other large distortions into the image.
There is, therefore, a need for a magnifier which does not introduce such aberrations and distortions into the image and which can be used by a person sitting in an upright position and which does not require that the person bend over and look down through the apparatus.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a magnifying apparatus for use for reading which can be placed upon the object to be read such as a book or printed paper and viewed at a normal and comfortable viewing angle by the reader.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a magnifying apparatus for reading which provides a clear, consistent image with little aberration.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a magnifying apparatus for reading which can be easily aligned and used by sliding the bottom of the apparatus over the object such as a book or printed page to be read.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a mangifying apparatus for reading which permits viewing by more than one person.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a magnifying apparatus for assistance in the teaching of reading to individuals having impaired vision.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a prism magnifying apparatus for reading a line of print which permits viewing the line of print in both magnified and actual size, as well as the viewing of a magnified image of the leading edge of the prism, to facilitate the alignment of the magnifying apparatus with the line of print.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a magnifying apparatus comprising a reflecting prism for converting a horizontal image into an image at an angle from the horizontal, means for magnifying an image, and means for spacing the magnifier from the prism.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for viewing an object at an angle from the horizontal comprising positioning an apparatus including a reflecting prism and a magnifying lens over an object to be viewed, reflecting an image of the object internally within the prism so that the image is transmitted from the prism at an angle from the horizontal, magnifying the transmitted image, and viewing the magnified image at an angle from the horizontal.